Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
11-15-2019

There is a lot of discussion around the Nebraska Capitol about how to “balance” taxes. We hear a lot about the “three-legged stool” of income, sales, and property taxes. In Nebraska, the income tax leg of the stool is about 26 percent. Sales tax makes up about 30 percent. Property and “other” taxation make up the remaining 44 percent.

Some folks insist that reducing property taxes means being in favor of increasing sales and income taxes. But I favor another method: spending less money. I think our taxes are too high, and I want to lower them by controlling government spending, not by picking a different victim.

Property tax hurts farm families and ag businesses because it attacks the ground under their feet. Land is the most basic tool that ag needs to produce food, fiber, and fuel. Property tax affects farmers like a perpetual diploma tax would affect doctors and lawyers. It is a tax on the basic asset that allows them to be productive in their work.

Income tax hurts, too. Every dollar that is taken in income taxes is a dollar that could have been reinvested in a Nebraska enterprise. Raising income tax is not a cure for high property taxes. It is like taking blood out of the patient’s left arm just to transfuse it back into his right arm.

I think Nebraska would take off like a rocket ship if we got rid of the income tax and funded state-level operations with just sales taxes, letting the local units of government operate on property tax revenues with strict levy limits. We have had an income tax since 1967, and the results are in. Our corporate income tax rate is one of the highest in the country. This runs off businesses and discourages others from locating here. I think it is time to end this 52-year income tax experiment. Nebraska could join the other nine states that get along without an income tax. We are already neighbors with two of them: South Dakota and Wyoming.

There are many ways to do this that are fair; that don’t disproportionately hurt the poor; that don’t starve the state of needed revenue to fix our prison system, fix our roads and bridges, and properly fund public education. Nebraskans spend a lot of money on government, but that does not mean we are getting a better government. Senator Linehan has proposed a number of intriguing ways to deliver public education more effectively while better protecting the taxpayer. It is time we had these discussions. The life of our state depends on it.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
11-08-2019

We have had a real busy interim this summer and fall. We’re putting the finishing touches on a few bills I will introduce on the first day. As always, my constituents gave me several great ideas for bills. The coming session starts January 8th. The constitution says the legislature will convene on the first Wednesday after the first Monday in January. This session will be a short one – 60 legislative days. Right now, the end of the session is scheduled for the 23rd of April.

This session is going to be very interesting and definitely worth watching. It is Sen. Ernie Chambers’ last session after which he will reach his term limit (for a second time). He is one of the most prolific orators in the body, and I am certain he will have plenty to say this time.

LB 720 is a bill called the Nebraska Imagine Act which will provide “business incentives.” There will be a lot of debate on this measure. It replaces the Nebraska Advantage Act, which sunsets this year. I have serious concerns about this bill. It does not deliver anything for rural Nebraska. It provides incentive money for wind energy companies. Estimates show roughly $120,000 in tax incentives will be spent to create just one $40,000 a year job. The claim is that Nebraska needs bills like these to incentivize businesses to come to our high tax state. Our high income and property taxes scare away a lot of people and businesses. I am not confident that the government picking winners and losers in our state economy will bring jobs or economic development into our state.

LB 289 is a bill to lower property taxes. I hope this will be one of the first bills discussed. Much has changed about this bill since last session. I believe we will all get to see what’s in the new bill before Thanksgiving. I would imagine it is not as ambitious as it once was. Some oppose doing away with certain sales tax exemptions to fund it. Some oppose re-purposing the Property Tax Credit Relief Fund to fund it. Some interest groups will strongly oppose any limits placed on a school’s ability to collect and spend property taxes. These circumstances make it really hard to pass a bill that delivers substantial and permanent property tax relief. I suspect the solution to this problem will ultimately lie with the people.

In a couple weeks we will move our office for the fourth time in three years to room 1101 as the Capitol remodeling and HVAC project continues. Please bear with us during this transition.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
11-01-2019

With Veterans Day approaching, my thoughts turned to something I heard as a soldier many years ago; “Land of the free BECAUSE of the brave.”

I think it is altogether right and proper to credit the American soldier for protecting and guaranteeing the freedoms we enjoy in the United States. There is no question that without the sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed forces, there wouldn’t even be the country we have today. I hope everyone takes a moment and reflects on this fact this Veterans Day.

But after the military, who else delivers freedom and prosperity to the American people every single day? I would argue it is the American Farmer and Rancher who does that. We all must eat every day; we must have food.

Former US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said “Every one of us that’s not a farmer is not a farmer because we have farmers.” Less than two percent of the US population feeds the other 98%. Thanks to that two percent, the rest of us have the freedom to choose whatever it is we want to do with our lives. We do not have to worry about growing the food we eat, so we can choose to become doctors, artists, lawyers, welders, teachers, and state senators because we can rely on someone else to provide us with a safe, reliable supply of affordable food. I have spent a lot of time in places in this world where the people could not take this for granted. While we reflect on our brave military on Veterans Day, we need to take stock in the many other things we have the luxury to take for granted in the United States.

Reflecting on this one quickly realizes we should be doing everything we can to support and protect the small part of our population that provides the rest of us with this vast amount of freedom. Agriculture is Nebraska’s #1 industry. At least one in every four jobs, and at least one in every five dollars in our State’s economy comes from this industry. Why then do we ask about 5% of Nebraska’s population who owns the farm and ranch ground to pay over 30% of all the property taxes collected in the state? Why would we do that to our most important industry who delivers so much freedom to the rest of us?

Thank a Veteran this Veterans Day. If he or she is a farmer or rancher, thank them again. We cannot enjoy the life we live in this country without either one of them. If you haven’t already, please sign the property tax ballot initiative. The people need to help the legislature break the political log-jam we’re in. Our Ag producers pay the highest agricultural ground property taxes in the country. If we continue to take for granted that about 80,000 of our 1.9 million citizens are going to be able to keep paying about $1.3 BILLION in property taxes, we’re all going to end up going to bed hungry one day.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
10-04-2019

On Friday, October 4th, my staff attended a legislative summit hosted by the Omaha-based Platte Institute. The theme of this event was “Imagine the Possibilities.” The Platte Institute supports free markets, lower taxes, and lower government spending, and they do a good job of advocating for these values. Since those are values I share, I am always glad to see Platte Institute folks walking the hallways at the Capitol.

There were a couple of major themes discussed at the Platte event, but they all centered around getting big government out of the way in Nebraska. Two Nebraskans received the “Connie Brown Freedom Award.” Dawn Hatcher of Columbus and Karen Hough of Arnold played a key role in legalizing equine massage, something that Sen. Mike Groene got done in 2018. These two business owners found something they were good at and that their neighbors wanted. Unfortunately, the government was in the way. I join the Platte Institute in cheering on these efforts to make Nebraska better — not just for horses, but for small-business owners who know all too well just how much red tape there is in between a good idea and a paycheck.

Cutting government red tape was also the topic of discussion for a panel that included my friend Sen. John Lowe from Kearney. Sen. Lowe talked about the mountains of bureaucratic regulations on the books here in Nebraska. We have two interim studies from Sen. Lowe scheduled for hearings in the Government, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee for Friday, October 25th. One will focus on rolling back harmful over-regulation. The other will discuss some ideas for making state agencies stretch every public dollar.

My committee legal counsel, Dick Clark, was a speaker on another panel, which discussed a good law passed in 2018 that requires the Legislature to review, reform, or even eliminate occupational licenses and other regulations that make it harder for people to work. Dick did hundreds of hours of research needed to get this new law operational. With Nebraska requiring state licenses for over 150 jobs, reviewing these licenses — some over 120 years old — is long overdue. If there is a bad law keeping people from doing productive work, my fellow senators need to know about it.

The single most important discussion of the day was on property taxes. Sen. Mike Groene and Sen. Lou Anne Linehan were the two lawmakers who participated in that conversation. The Platte Institute passed out information on sales and property taxes. Their property tax handout said more or less what I have been saying since the end of session, that the Legislature’s mission in 2020 has to be to “develop a 33-vote consensus on major property tax reform or face a possible constitutional amendment ballot initiative…” Senators who ignore that warning are going to be faced with some unpleasant choices after next November. I continue to hope that we can get them to do the work to make property tax relief more than a campaign slogan. If we cannot, voters will take matters into their own hands.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
10-11-2019

I recently had the opportunity to again attend the Governor’s Pine Ridge Turkey Hunt in Chadron. It is a great opportunity to show my legislative colleagues and others from Eastern Nebraska some of the charms of the Nebraska Panhandle. Visitors cannot help but notice the natural beauty of the place when they visit. This trip, I was reminded that it is the people that make this part of Nebraska so special.

I brought along Tony Baker and Dick Clark from my legislative office. Tony has been on this turkey hunt before, but it was Dick’s first time, and Dick had never shot a turkey before. We got an early start from Lincoln on Wednesday, and were able to beat the bad weather. We got to meet the generous landowners who host all the participants.

Besides myself, Governor Ricketts and Senators Lowe, Arch, and Erdman made the trip. The weather forecast predicted sub-zero wind chills and heavy snow. The threat of a little Nebraska weather scared off a lot of folks who had signed up, so the event organizers were not even sure how the event was going to go.

Wednesday night, after the meet-and-greet, I noticed I had a low tire on my truck. While filling the low tire, the valve stem broke off in my hand. To make matters worse, I did not have the right tool on-hand to remove the locking lug and pull the wheel off the truck. You would think that in a rural town after ten o’clock at night I would be out of luck. But another customer at the gas station turned out to be the operator of a local auto parts business. He opened up his shop at 10:30pm, got me the tool I needed, and got me back on the road.

We had breakfast on Thursday morning at Prairie Pines Lodge, an assisted living facility in Chadron. Then we linked up with the host landowners and headed out to see about some turkeys. Dick and I were paired up with Cody Brinton, operator of the Quarter Circle Lazy Y Ranch. He put us on some birds pretty quick, and Dick got his first ever turkeys. I filled a tag with my own turkey, and then Cody took us back to his ranch house where we dressed the turkeys and drank some of the best coffee I have had.

After the hunt was done, I met up with some of the other participants and we took a tour of Chadron State College. My daughter and her husband are both CSC alumni, but the campus has been improved tremendously even since they graduated a few years ago. Talking to college president Randy Rhine about these projects, I was blown away by how far they are able to stretch a dollar. And their programs largely focus on things we need in the ag economy. I would like to see our other state schools take a page from Chadron State on being careful stewards of public resources. A little Western Nebraska horse sense would do Lincoln a lot of good.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
10-18-2019

On Friday, October 18th, we held a meeting of the Government, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee to discuss two interim study resolutions. These resolutions are introduced by senators who want to investigate topics that they think may require action by the Legislature. Our committee heard testimony on two subjects: unfunded mandates by the Legislature for counties, and election technology updates.

The first study, LR 149, was introduced by Senator Justin Wayne. His concern was laws passed by the Unicameral telling counties to run programs without providing state funds to make those programs work. He pointed out that the Government Committee does not get a lot of chances to lower property taxes, but that this was one area where that is possible.

Senator Steve Erdman testified next. As a former county commissioner in Morrill County, he told the committee that unfunded mandates are a core reason for high property taxes in Nebraska. Keeping state prisoners in county jails is not reimbursed like it used to be. State aid to counties was cut off in 2011. He accused the Legislature of “balancing the state’s budget on the backs of local units of government” over the last ten years.

A representative from the Nebraska Association of County Officials (NACO) agreed with Senator Erdman. NACO provided a handout with a whole laundry list of additional unfunded mandates. Among others, the costs of laws requiring county action on behavioral/mental health and transport for juveniles and other state wards add up quickly.

A Lancaster County board member informed us that in Lancaster County unfunded mandates add up to almost $20 million of expenses in the current budget year alone. A representative from Douglas County piled on with even bigger numbers. It is clear that there are a lot of programs that my colleagues in the Legislature have created in law that do not have any funding source other than the local property tax payer.

All of the testifiers seemed to agree that if the county government is doing something to help the local community, it makes sense to pay for it locally. But if that activity is really about state goals and local officials do not have much say in how to carry it out, that is something that lawmakers in Lincoln ought to budget for.

The second hearing of the day was on LR 247, proposed by Senator La Grone. He is my committee vice-chair, and he is keenly interested in keeping elections honest and secure. At this hearing we heard testimony about how we are updating Nebraska elections technology. Testifiers all agreed that the useful life of elections equipment is about ten years, but one thing is not going to change any time soon: using paper ballots is still essential. Part of my Government Committee priority package this past year provided for needed election law changes, handicap accessibility updates, better training, and more streamlined Election Day procedures. Fortunately, we are on track to have all of our ballot machines and procedures updated in time for the upcoming 2020 elections.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
10-25-2019

Another round of interim study hearings were held in my committee on Friday, October 25th. The first hearing was on Senator John Lowe’s LR 187. This resolution directed us to look into whether Nebraska could save money by hiring an outside firm to conduct an efficiency review of state agencies.

Eric Schnurer, a Philadelphia-based consultant, briefed us on reviews that have been conducted for seven other state governments, Iowa and Wyoming. These reviews take a hard look at existing policies and procedures. Some of these rules and regulations made sense in years past but need to be revisited. Some were never very efficient.

Other states found savings on big-ticket items like policy reform in Corrections, Health & Human Services, and Transportation, along with smaller changes like printing on both sides of a piece of paper, or making sure that salt spreaders on snow plows are calibrated to use the correct amount of road salt. Even the small stuff adds up to real money: taxpayer savings from efficiency reviews in other states ranged from tens of millions of dollars annually in North Carolina to billions of dollars in states like Louisiana and Iowa.

Jason Jackson, the director of Nebraska’s Department of Administrative Services, came up to the testifier’s chair next. He told the committee about the governor’s Center for Operational Excellence, which has trained more than fifteen thousand state employees on process improvement. He reported that we are starting to see the fruits of those changes.

Wait times for Access Nebraska that were over 24 minutes are now down to under five minutes. Applications are shorter, processing times are shorter, and Nebraska’s reforms are now being used as a case study by the Harvard Business Institute. Mr. Jackson said that his team has helped reduce the taxpayer-funded state government workforce by 800 positions since he joined the Ricketts administration.

After a recent visit to Valentine, I heard about increased paperwork hassles for some of our seniors in assisted-living facilities. During our hearing, I made sure to ask Mr. Jackson about how we might cut some red tape there. He promised me on the record that he would work with me to address the problem.

The second hearing was on LR 92, also introduced by Senator Lowe. This interim study was focused on over-regulation. Lots of groups across the country have analyzed the effects of old, broken regulations, and how too much government slows down economic growth. James Broughel from the Mercatus Center in Virginia gave us an idea of how many regulations we have on the books here in Nebraska: a total of 100,627 restrictions across 7.5 million words.

Former Senator Nicole Fox, now with the Platte Institute in Omaha, delivered a short history lesson on recent projects in Nebraska to trim the regulatory load. Among those efforts was executive action by Governor Ricketts requiring agencies to review and rewrite mountains of old regulations. We have made some progress on the problem of big government in Nebraska. I think we still have a long way to go, especially for our small businesses.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
9-20-2019

I want to address a fear I have heard from certain people concerning the Property Tax Ballot Initiative. I have heard it would be likely to result in massive tax increases and create a “crisis” in Nebraska. My question is this: who is it a crisis for? Is it a crisis for the people paying some of the highest property taxes in the country?

Here is my read on the Legislature with its current membership: There are not 25 votes to pass a bill that raises income or sales taxes. I do not think it is even close. A bill hiking taxes is unlikely to even make it out of committee. If by some fluke it did, there are not the 33 senators needed to end the filibuster, which I can promise you would surely come. There are at least 20 senators, myself included, who would be happy to lead it.

The “crisis” folks need to be focused on is the one that is already here and has been getting worse for decades. Family farms and ranches are going bankrupt trying to pay their property taxes. People and businesses are fleeing Nebraska, or not moving here in the first place, because of high taxes. We are told we have to create economic development programs that spend $120,000 in tax money to create one job, in order to attract businesses to our high tax state. The real “crisis” — the one that is already here — is the result of our high taxes.

There is one more chance to solve the property tax problem next session. We need to find common ground and come together in order to do that. Rumors and innuendo sour our political discourse, and grow the political divide we already have in Nebraska. They makes reaching a solution on this serious problem even more difficult. I think our chances of getting something passed in the legislature are substantially increased when we can all work together in good faith.
I see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to update our whole tax system. I think there is a responsible way to permanently lower the property tax burden while properly funding our schools. I think we can actually lower the sales tax rate, and perhaps even do away with income taxes altogether. The people are actually doing the legislature a favor with their property tax ballot initiative. They can break the political log-jam we’re in, and open up a whole range of opportunities the legislature can’t even dream of right now.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room 1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
9-13-2019

“Some people did something.”

Last April, this is how Rep. Ilhan Omar, Freshman Democrat from Minnesota, referred to the 9/11 attacks which murdered nearly 3,000 Americans.

This remark, and the breathtaking ignorance and disrespect it represents, reminds me to never forget and always remember what happened that day. This is easy for me and millions of other Americans who will never forget where they were and what they were doing when the attacks happened. As for Ms. Omar, she was only 19 on the 9/11, a recent immigrant to the United States, largely ignorant of our country’s culture, history and traditions. I could almost forgive her for taking such a casually flippant attitude toward the 9/11 attacks. After all, her family fled one of the worst hell-holes on the planet. She knew nothing of freedom and liberty in our country. That said, she’s had plenty of time since then to reach a full understanding of what 9/11 meant to America.

In addition to members of the U.S. Congress being terrorist apologists, a lot has changed since September 11, 2001. We now have a whole generation of young people who have grown up since the attacks. In high schools across the country, students born before 9/11 are almost all gone. Those of us who lived through this terrible time have a duty to teach our young Americans what happened and why. I visited the Hyannis High School on 9/11 this year and spoke with the students about it. All but two had been born after 9/11.

Since 9/11, our country has been involved in one armed conflict or another for 18 years now. Young people today have never known their country not to be at war. On 9/11 I was a brand-new Lieutenant Colonel in my 24th year of military service without ever being sent to a shooting war. Most of my life and all of my Army career up to that point, the United States had been at peace.

Today, soldiers who joined the military after 9/11 are nearing the end of a 20 year career that has known nothing but war. One of the most recent casualties in Afghanistan was a soldier who was on his 4th combat deployment to that country. 9/11 has transformed the country I grew up in to something completely different. Islamic Extremists caused this transformation – not “somebody.” They murdered nearly 3,000 innocent civilians in cold blood on 9/11. Over 7,000 American military servicemen have been killed in action fighting this fanatical death cult so far. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been murdered all over the world in the name of this twisted view of Islam. They “did something” alright, and they are still doing it.

If we forget the lessons 9/11 has taught us, we are doomed to repeat them.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
9-6-2019

In a perfect world, every good or service produced anywhere on the planet could be sold anywhere else on the planet free of charge, and free of any government obstacles. Countries wouldn’t manipulate the value of their money. They wouldn’t steal intellectual property. They wouldn’t use slave labor. They wouldn’t sell products at a loss and flood the market with them in order to destroy competition and create monopolies. They wouldn’t heavily subsidize things creating unfair advantages in the world market. They wouldn’t put barriers up that prevent free trade.

I am a big fan of the Austrian School of Economic theory promoted by the Mises Institute. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. We have to deal with the world we do live in. For many decades now, over several different presidential administrations and many different congresses, the United States has not been doing a very good job of dealing with trade in the real world. This incompetence has cost our country dearly.

The Chinese have been on a virtual crime spree over the last couple of decades. Thankfully we now have a President willing to address this situation. Confronting China’s unfair and illegal trade practices that threaten our economy is long overdue. The outright theft or forced transfer of American technology and intellectual property have cost our country at least $50 billion annually. Sophisticated electronics and other high-tech gadgets that used to be made only in the United States are now made in China instead.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, over 3.4 million US jobs have been lost because of their unfair trade practices. Main street Mom & Pop businesses in the United States have been devastated.

It’s important to understand that all Chinese companies are connected to the Chinese government, or owned out-right by it. China has politicized its entire economy to serve the objectives of a totalitarian regime; the Chinese Communist Party. We are not dealing with a “trading partner.” We are dealing with a determined advisory bent on the destruction of our country as we know it.

I know there is a lot of very justified concern about the on-going trade dispute between the US and China. I know how sensitive commodity markets are, and how some small piece of news about a proposed tariff can cause wild swings in prices. I worry about this too and follow it closely, but our country has been ripped off. Our manufacturing jobs, our sensitive technology innovations, and our small family businesses have been gutted because our elected officials in Washington have gave away the farm. It’s not going to be easy to turn this mess around, but it must be addressed. I’m glad we finally have a President who is willing to try and fix it.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1423, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.